Original Text
Niu Chengzhang was a cloth merchant from Jiangxi. He married a woman named Zheng, who bore him a son and a daughter. He fell ill and died at the age of thirty-three. His son, named Niu Zhong, was then only twelve years old, and his daughter was but eight or nine. Zheng could not remain a widow; she seized all the family property for herself and remarried, abandoning the two orphans to fend for themselves in dire straits. Niu Chengzhang had an elder sister-in-law by a paternal uncle, who was already sixty years old, poor and widowed, with no one to rely on, so she came to live with the two children.
After several years had passed, the elder sister-in-law died, leaving the family even more impoverished and desolate. By this time, Niu Zhong had gradually grown up and wished to revive his father's trade but suffered from a lack of capital. His younger sister had married into the Mao family, a wealthy merchant household. The sister begged her husband to lend her brother several tens of taels of silver. Niu Zhong then journeyed with others to Nanjing, but on the road they encountered bandits, and all the money was stolen, leaving him stranded in a foreign land, unable to return home. One day, Niu Zhong happened upon a pawnshop and saw that the shopkeeper bore a striking resemblance to his own father. After coming out, he secretly made inquiries and found that the shopkeeper's name was also the same as his father's. His heart was filled with astonishment, and he could not fathom the reason. He lingered around the pawnshop every day, secretly observing whether the shopkeeper showed any reaction to him, but the shopkeeper paid him no heed. After three days of this, observing the shopkeeper's speech and mannerisms, he was truly convinced it was his own father. Niu Zhong dared not reveal himself, so he introduced himself to the pawnshop's servants and begged the shopkeeper, on account of being a fellow townsman, to allow him to work as a servant in the shop. After the contract was signed, the shopkeeper looked at his native place and name, and seemed to be stirred, asking him where he came from. Niu Zhong wept and recounted his father's name. The shopkeeper, upon hearing this, was lost in thought, as if something had been taken from him. After a long while, he asked, "Is your mother well?" Niu Zhong dared not say that his father was dead, so he replied evasively, "My father went out six years ago on business and never returned; my mother remarried and left. Fortunately, my aunt raised me; otherwise, I would have long since been buried in a ditch." The shopkeeper said sorrowfully, "I am your father." With these words, he grasped his hand, deeply grieved. He then led him inside to meet his stepmother. The stepmother, née Ji, was in her thirties and had no children. She was delighted to see Niu Zhong and prepared a feast in the inner chamber to entertain him. Niu Chengzhang had always been melancholy and longed to return to his hometown. Ji, worried that the shop would be left unattended, tried to dissuade him. Niu Chengzhang then took his son to manage the pawnshop together. After three months, he entrusted the shop to his son, packed his belongings, and set off for home.
After their parting, Niu Zhong informed his stepmother of the truth that his father had died. Lady Ji was greatly startled and said, "Your father came here to trade, and an old close friend urged him to stay and manage a pawnshop business; he married me six years ago. How can you say he is already dead?" Niu Zhong then recounted the details in full. Both were filled with doubt and could not fathom the reason. After a day and a night, Niu Chengzhang returned, bringing with him a woman whose hair was as tangled as straw. Niu Zhong saw at once that it was his own mother. Niu Chengzhang seized the woman by the ear, stamping his feet and cursing loudly, "Why did you abandon my son!" The woman, trembling with fear, prostrated herself on the ground, not daring to move. Niu Chengzhang bit her neck with his teeth. The woman cried out to Niu Zhong, "Son, save me! Son, save me!" Unable to bear it, Niu Zhong thrust himself between his parents. But Niu Chengzhang remained furious, and in that moment the woman vanished. The crowd was horrified, crying out that they had seen a ghost. Looking again at Niu Chengzhang, his face turned ghastly, his clothes fell to the ground, and he transformed into a mass of black vapor, which soon disappeared as well. Niu Zhong and his stepmother were both astonished and lamenting; they gathered Niu Chengzhang's garments and hat and buried them. Niu Zhong inherited his father's business and amassed a fortune of ten thousand strings of cash. Later, upon returning to his hometown to inquire, he learned that his remarried mother had died on that very day, and the whole family had witnessed Niu Chengzhang.
Commentary
This tale is startling and eerie, with a terrifying plot, depicting a deceased father punishing his son-abandoning, remarried wife, carrying a clear warning and admonitory intent.
From a conceptual standpoint, Pu Songling, standing on the Confucian ground, affirmed the virtue of widows remaining chaste, as seen in his tale "The Clay Idol," where a widow's chastity earns heavenly reward. Yet from a practical perspective, Pu Songling was not rigidly conservative; he adopted a rather tolerant attitude toward widows remarrying, as in "The Golden Birth." In this present story, however, the woman Zheng is placed on the moral opposite side and condemned, not for remarrying, but because she "sold off the family property, pocketed the proceeds, and remarried, abandoning her two orphans to a life of hardship," thus violating the fundamental moral duty of a mother. Hence, the tale begins with a meticulous account of Niu Chengzhang's age and that of his children.